wen

• enPR: wĕn, IPA^(key): /wɛn/
• Rhymes: -ɛn
• Homophone: when (in accents with the wine-whine merger)

From Middle English wen, wenne, from Old English wenn, wænn (“wen”), from Proto-Germanic *wanjaz. Cognate with Dutch wen (“goiter”), Low German Ween (“wen”), dialectal German Wenne (“wen”), Danish van, væne.

wen (plural wens)

1. A cyst on the skin.
   • 1854, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, Walden:

     When I have met an immigrant tottering under a bundle which contained his all--looking like an enormous wen which had grown out of the nape of his neck--I have pitied him, not because that was his all, but because he had all that to carry.

   • 1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow:

     Creeps, foreigners with tinted, oily skin, wens, sties, cysts, wheezes, bad teeth, limps, staring or—worse—with Strange Faraway Smiles.

   • 1996, David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, Abacus 2013, p. 4:

     I am debating whether to risk scratching the right side of my jaw, where there is a wen.

From Old English wynn

wen (plural wens)

1. a runic letter later replaced by w

Eye dialect spelling of when.

wen (not comparable)

1. (eye dialect) Alternative spelling of when

wen

1. (eye dialect) Alternative spelling of when

wen

1. (eye dialect) Alternative spelling of when

wen (uncountable)

1. (eye dialect) Alternative spelling of when

• New, new, new-

From Dutch winnen, from Middle Dutch winnen, from Old Dutch winnan, from Proto-Germanic *winnaną, from Proto-Indo-European *wen- (“to strive, desire, wish, love”).

wen (present wen, present participle wennende, past participle gewen)

1. to win

• IPA^(key): /ʋɛn/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛn

From Proto-Germanic *hwannē. Cognate with English when, German wann.

wen

1. (archaic) when

   En ik dacht aan den geur harer bloesems, aan het huiveren harer takken, aan den zang harer vogelen; en ik vroeg mij: wen rieken wij die? (V. Someren, 1822)

   And I thought about the scent of her blossoms, at the shuddering of her branches, at the songs of her birds, and I asked myself: when do we smell these?

wen

1. (archaic) when

   Daar heb ik wen de vogels vlogen, heimelik in elk nest geschouwd! (L. De Mont, 1880)

   There have I, when the birds flew, looked privily in each nest!

wen

1. first-person singular present indicative of wennen
2. imperative of wennen

wen

1. what

• IPA^(key): [veːn]
• Rhymes: -eːn

wen

1. (interrogative) accusative of wer: whom (direct object).

   Wen hast du gefragt?

   Whom did you ask?

• wen in Duden online

wēn

1. Romanization of 𐍅𐌴𐌽

wen

1. Rōmaji transcription of ゑん

wen

1. Nonstandard spelling of wēn.
2. Nonstandard spelling of wén.
3. Nonstandard spelling of wěn.
4. Nonstandard spelling of wèn.

• English transcriptions of Mandarin speech often fail to distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without the appropriate indication of tone.

wen

1. Alternative form of wayn (“wagon”)

• ƿēn

From Proto-Germanic *wēniz, from Proto-Indo-European *wen- (“love”). Cognate with Old Frisian wen, Old Saxon wan, Old High German wān (German Wahn ‘delusion’), Old Norse ván, Gothic 𐍅𐌴𐌽𐍃 (wēns).

• IPA^(key): /weːn/

wēn f

1. hope, belief
2. expectation, likelihood

• English: ween

wen

1. Soft mutation of gwen (“white (feminine)”).